Game Crash: vertical line only screen ?

[SuRGV]

Hi all,
I've been asking this question in several forums but still can't resolve this problem. My final hope is in this forum
Recently, when I'm playing Unreal Tournament or Empire Earth, my computer suddenly crashes and the screen displays only vertical color lines (some Reds, Greens,..).
I thouhgt it was the result of recent driver updates. However, switching back to used-to-stable old ones, like CAT.3.2, did not solve the problem at all (I did not experience this problem at all in drivers set CAT.3.2, CAT.3.4, CAT.3.5). I tried all 3.xx drivers but to no avail.

Someone suggested it could be my PSU problem (the +3.3V rail) but using MBM to monitor the voltages of my system and the 3.3V seems very good (never goes below 3.28). It's High Power 360W though.

Somone helps please. So sick of seeing color lines when I'm in the middle of hot battle.

Any idea would be greatly appreciated ! Thank you.

[Admiral]

Sounds like video ram gone bad, can you test another video card in there ?

[SuRGV]

Adminal,
I still have Matrox G200 in another comp. will give it a try later.
Thanks

[Admiral]

You could try putting that LE back to original speeds and also check if the fan on it is spinning right.

[Wombat]

It might be a bad part, it might be the overclock, it might just be heat?

[SuRGV]

I'm now running it @ 250/250 to see if it will fix.
heat should not be problem since I have 5 case fans and my room temp is now 15 to 20'C. the fan on it is working normally too.

[rylan]

If you've got colored stripes on a hard crash, then most likely its the video card drawing engine (graphics chip core) that stopped responding. Little twinkling while playing will point to the graphics memory. Flashing strips or blocks while playing games are drawing engine errors. If it works clocked back to normal speeds then you've just got bad luck with a chip that can't quite handle the retail speed.

[SuRGV]

thanks for the inputs guys. I think the card can't handle the oc speed to retail speed anymore. been playing UT and EE for many hours without crashing at 250/250.

[Helevitia]

Install the cat3.8's and use the new VPU recover feature and see if that kicks in when the problem happens.

Dave

[SuRGV]

Helevitia,
Been using Cat3.8 (both ATI's and Omega's) with VPY recover but it did not seem to be recover at all when the problem occurred. Always had to restart.
After setting to 250/250, no problem so far. Still testing.

[rylan]

You able to tweak it to someplace inbetween the retail and your default speeds?

[SuRGV]

Rylan,
Default is 230/230 and retail is 275/275. Running @ 250/250 now

[rylan]

Oh duh... hehehe

[Kooldino]

Anytime you have a video card issue, and you're running an OC'd card, clocking it down should be the FIRST thing you try.

[SuRGV]

Kooldino,
Yeah now I've laearned so !